Saturday, September 6, 2008

MERSA

A little bug that strikes fear in hospitals cause it is so pervasive and can cause trouble in patients who are undergoing severe physical stress.
Funny back in the late winter I ran a few tests, looking at traditional remidies for bacteria problems in the throat. MERSA lives there some times.
I took a sample of MERSA plated it on blood agar plates and then added the following, Salt water, Listerine, garlic, vitamin C, hot pepper extract and vinegar. I also ran a negative control ( my mouth) . MERSA was delayed, but still grew in the Listerine after 24 hours. There was no slow down of grow in any of the others,,,except the vinegar, where there was no growth at all and the negative control.
So vinegar appears to be a very potent ally in the fight against really resistant bacteria.

So here is my boring health post

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This little bit of off the side research from my normal work, needs real follow-up! Checking other acid compounds like lemon juice, cranberry juice, orange juice would be worthwhile. Additionally, finding out at what concentration distilled white vinegar is so effective would be good along with comparing other kinds of vinegar (apple, wine, balsamic, etc...) would also be valuable. The the next steps of seeing how it might work in an actual patient might be helpful, since this was all in the lab.